A new and innovative architecture? Perhaps, but that is only part of the story.

A unique, compelling management paradigm that sped and simplified tasks, while promoting collaboration? Potentially, and definitely part of the formula as well.

The real story is People. People buy technology to do work that needs done. People have to think ahead, they must understand what will be needed and then decide on a path, on a partner (still more people) to develop and deliver the technology they need. [I had a bunch more “people” in here but it was getting really ridiculous, instead of only slightly ridiculous.]

Real people, not real stories, making real decisions every day chose the technology that meets their needs, now and in the future. They decide what works and what does not.

So why UCS? There have been a lot comments about UCS over the years that have resonated with me on this very question. I wanted to share two that seemed most on point right now. It is a little bit of “then and now” since they are two years apart, but it felt right and the sentiments are remarkably similar.

“Five years ago…Cisco Systems launched…UCS…into the gaping maw of the Great Recession…Recessions have always accelerated transitions in IT architecture…in the favor of upstarts with new ideas and against incumbents who are set in their ways…” – Five Years On, UCS Makes Cisco A Systems Player, April 2014, EnterpriseTech, Timothy Prickett Morgan

“…upstarts with new ideas…” – sounds like a pretty fair summary.

So where do UCS Customers see real benefit? I’d rather they tell you their real story:

What is integrated infrastructure? Major analysts firms differ slightly on the taxonomy and makeup of the various integrated systems that comprise this market segment. However, they do agree that these systems include a combination of servers, networking, storage systems, and management. Cisco realized that bringing together industry and market leading technologies would help accelerate IT infrastructure deployment, lower design costs, simplify management, and enable high levels of utilization. Integrated infrastructures offer the foundation for private cloud deployments, virtual desktop solutions, and enterprise applications.

Everyone agrees that the integrated infrastructure market is booming and that Cisco is a core vendor in this market segment with leading integrated infrastructures built on top of Cisco UCS and Cisco Nexus. IDC believes this market is going to grow at greater than 30% for the next few years to more than $14B in 2017. Today, Cisco UCS and Cisco Nexus participate in the top three Integrated Infrastructures –FlexPod Solutions with NetApp, Vblock Systems with VCE, and EMC VSPEX. FlexPod and Vblock have captured more than 42% of the market and utilize Cisco UCS and Nexus exclusively.

In addition, Hitachi Unified Compute Platform Select and Nimble Storage SmartStack also chose to build integrated infrastructure solutions with Cisco UCS servers and Cisco Nexus switches. If you add up the numbers from IDC, Cisco participates in integrated infrastructures that account for roughly 69% of the market from a revenue perspective. Very impressive!

It is also impressive that just five years ago we announced Cisco UCS and it is now the #1 provider of x86 Blade Servers in the Americas and #2 World Wide (according to the most recent IDC Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker – May 2014). Cisco UCS has delivered some ground breaking technology. The policy-based Service Profiles and Cisco SingleConnect technology changed how we connected, managed, and provisioned servers. Cisco continues to drive this strategy forward with Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI), offering comprehensive control of a much broader set of data center infrastructure that is oriented to the application environment. FlexPod, Vblock Systems, and Cisco solutions for EMC VSPEX plan to integrate Cisco ACI with Cisco UCS Director to accelerate application delivery and streamline operations. Both NetApp and VCE recently announced they will also integrate Cisco’s Intercloud Fabric with FlexPod and Vblock Systems, enabling the management of cloud-enabled workloads across heterogeneous environments.

This rapid rate of customer adoption for Cisco UCS and integrated infrastructures enabled by Cisco is evidence that real innovation can deliver IT infrastructure that transforms the data center. For more information on integrated infrastructures enabled by Cisco please check out this new white paper.

The numbers are in – across the board Cisco is posting strong results and tracking unprecedented momentum in the server market. With Cisco’s Q3 financial earnings announcement reporting 77% Y/Y growth in Data Center and now the latest IDC Server Tracker results [view UCS Advantage], Cisco is proving to be a formidable force in the compute space. In less than four years after entering a market with very well-established competitors, Cisco has captured the #2 worldwide share position in x86 blade servers*.

The industry has seen businesses shift over 19% of the global x86 blade market to Cisco UCS, and over 28% in the US. In the recent earnings announcement, Cisco reported more than 23,000 unique UCS customers worldwide, representing a customer growth number of 89% Y/Y.

This is not luck …

This is about the value that Cisco is providing our customers. Although we develop products using the same industry standard hardware & software as our competitors, Cisco continues to grow market share. This is attributed Cisco’s unique & innovative approach to providing an open, standards-based data center network architecture and ecosystem that maintains customer choice. We are increasing business value while substantially decreasing the total cost of ownership (TCO). With Cisco Unified Computing System, we are truly evolving the way customers approach the data center, focused on consolidating resources, accelerating server deployment, and simplifying management – flexible and scalable for any workload. It’s that simple.

You hear a lot of buzz words around the industry. But when it comes down to the numbers, Cisco is driving real results for real customers [click to enlarge]:

Here is just some of what we are hearing from our customers:Read More »

Some of the individuals posting to this site, including the moderators, work for Cisco Systems. Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not of Cisco. The content is provided for informational purposes only and is not meant to be an endorsement or representation by Cisco or any other party. This site is available to the public. No information you consider confidential should be posted to this site. By posting you agree to be solely responsible for the content of all information you contribute, link to, or otherwise upload to the Website and release Cisco from any liability related to your use of the Website. You also grant to Cisco a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free and fully-paid, transferable (including rights to sublicense) right to exercise all copyright, publicity, and moral rights with respect to any original content you provide. The comments are moderated. Comments will appear as soon as they are approved by the moderator.